BON JOVI- The Meadowlands, Giants Stadium

Written by Backstage Bruce

and guests. They have arrived. 

  Bon Jovi's first European tour was in 1984. They were the support act for KISS. I was fortunate enough to catch the show on October 31st, in Germany. I went with two buddies, one of them knew music extremely well and was adamant that we arrive on time to see the opening band, so we were. I am glad we did. Everybody knew their name by the end of the show. 

    They were excited to be in Europe and it showed. Their energy level was up and their stage presence was on-point. The rockin' music was raw. KISS on the other hand was doing the no make-up and no pyrotechnics thing and nobody really wanted to see KISS like that. Bon Jovi definitely rocked harder than KISS that Halloween night. 

   In no time at all they would be rockstars worldwide. That happened a little over a year later when they released 'Slippery When Wet' in 1986. It contained a handful of smash hits: 'Livin' On A Prayer', 'Wanted Dead or Alive', 'You Give Love A Bad Name', 'Never Say Goodbye', etc... 

    They released their fourth album 'New Jersey' two years after that and just solidified their place in rock history. That album had as many, if not more hits that the previous one: 'I'll Be There For You', 'Lay Your Hands On Me', 'Bad Medicine', 'Born To Be My Baby', etc...  

The early days with the original line up

    The band embarked on a massively successful world tour, entitled 'New Jersey Syndicate Tour' from 1988 to 1990.  On March 10th, 1988, the tour stopped in at Nassau Coliseum. It was completely sold-out. 

    

    I get there day of and it was a pretty normal day. I set up breakfast, lunch, the dressing rooms, the sound board, everything is pretty much ordinary. The only thing I do remember was that we received a call from Debbie Gibson's people. She was coming over with a few friends. She does live down the street basically. I had to quickly set up a hospitality suite for them, super simple, under twenty-one, all soft drinks and snacks. 

    Any excitement throughout the day was happening in the front of the house, the stage being set up and a catwalk being erected throughout the entire coliseum. It was phenomenal. To this day after seeing hundreds of shows, I have never seen any other band erect a catwalk inside a coliseum. 

    The concert started promptly at 8:00 p.m. They performed a great mix from their first four albums. Jon Bon Jovi on vocals, Richie Sambora on guitar, Alec John Such on bass, Tico Torres on drums and David Bryan on keyboards all blended so well harmonically together it sounded fantastic. During the song 'Wanted Dead Or Alive', all the lights dimmed, stage and house, to the point the entire place was dark. At once they all turned on, timed perfectly with the loud music, it felt like an explosion of cascading lights. It was great. 

    Jon Bon Jovi climbed onto the catwalk with his big, bushy hair, wearing that same black leather jacket with the fringes that he wore in the videos. He started strutting the catwalk while singing. The audience lost their collective minds. Here the people who were sitting kind of far back (the nose bleeds) are now only 10-feet away from him. They're taking pictures and cheering him on. It was really cool, this catwalk gave thousands of fans an opportunity to have an intimate moment, however brief. The audience went absolute wild. They all left satisfied. 

Donnington Castle, UK, 1987

    

    Three months later the tour would be back in the area, this time at Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, N.J. This is it! They are from New Jersey, their latest album is entitled 'New Jersey' and tonight they are headlining the stadium in New Jersey. 

    How many times were the five of them here as a little boy to see a Giants or Jets football game? Or as a teenager to see a concert? Well tonight it's their turn. Rolling Stone magazine's back cover "The Homecoming, Bon Jovi, The Meadowlands, June 11th, 1989. Welcome Home!" They named the show "The Homecoming".

    I love working at The Meadowlands because it is a stadium and everything is spaced so far apart. I get to drive around in a golf cart a lot of the time. It is so sweet. There are eight spiral ramps that just went on forever. We would rip that up, get into golf cart races and try to pop wheelies. That is definitely one of my fondest memories of the old Giants Stadium/ Meadowlands. 

 
    We would fill up coolers full of beverages and ice and then put them on the golf cart to run out to the people working in the mixing board area. We would always be three of us, one to drive, one to ride passenger and one to ride in back with the coolers. If one person tried to drive a few coolers of beverages to the center of the stadium, they would just get mobbed and have all their beverages taken. 

    Everything was further away at the stadium: the dressing rooms, the VIP areas, the buses and I loved it. There was only a few stadium shows a year so I cherished every second of it, being outside in the summertime. The stage and the catwalk were being erected again. This time they were mammoth, much bigger than inside a coliseum. They were built to size inside a stadium. 

    The amount of crew members to construct it in one day was massive and we fed them all. The audience was going to love it. And they did. They loved having the chance to see him so up-close. He would take his time on the catwalk, he randomly  stopped here and there to play to the audience, which sent them into a frenzy. The show was sounding terrific again. The bands has so many hits to choose from. 

    There were a lot of celebrities floating around backstage, one in particular, that I remember seeing was the late, great comedian Sam Kinison. He was friends with the band. He was in their music video 'Bad Medicine'. And Jon Bon Jovi was one of the featured celebrities in Sam Kinison's music video 'Wild Thing'.  

    'BAD MEDICINE' music video with Sam Kinison

    I could hear the entire concert while driving around in the golf cart. Now that the show has gotten underway my task was to stock the buses. I load up my golf cart with ice, beer, beverages, snacks, hot pizzas and drive out to meet my contact person to unlock the buses.

    There were three buses, it took me about five minutes per bus to load up. Going on Bon Jovi's tour buses was really freakin' cool, nice memory. I stashed three beers, that were meant for the buses, for myself. Now that they were all stocked up my job was done until later. It was now time to chug the beers then get back inside and watch the rest of the homecoming.